A day in the life

Last year I wrote a post – I read the news today, oh boy – in a “day in the life” type post to help people understand what I do all day. I was thinking about that post this last week for some reason and I decided I should do it again. The last time was in May of 2012 which now seems ages ago! I probably had no idea what I was doing! I sort of know what I’m doing know so I think it would be fun to compare and I took copious notes this year. These types of posts for librarians have been going on for a while so perhaps you will be bored, but it’s helpful for me sometimes to see what I’ve done all day. There are days where it seems like nothing gets done and I feel like I’m working. It’s a mystery really.

Picture unrelated . . . I just like it.

So, here was my day last Wednesday. I was scheduled 10-6 and Wednesdays are generally one of the days where I get a good amount of time off the public service desk to work on some YA stuff. Here goes!

9:50ish-10:15: Got in the building and sorted out my coat and lunch and items to return; headed upstairs to the main/circulation desk to check on staffing to see if I could be at my YA desk for a bit; put out any new YA books onto the display; there was a YA book with an incorrect spine label so I sent that down to Tech Services to get fixed; wrote my daily ‘to do’ list on a tiny scrap of paper so I could take it downstairs to my YA desk in Tech and tape it to my running to do list. (I’m super organized and classy.)

11am-Noon: Fixed a flyer for our upcoming Skate & Read community partnership program thingy and printed out copies; printed a portion of the flyers I send to the public schools; talked with a circulation desk coworker about some issue I missed the day before (I’m not telling, you nosy Nancy); checked the Etsy order status of the vinyl decals I ordered for the YA space; ordered window paints from Amazon for the teen space; and chatted with the head of Tech services about ordering a cake for our Skate & Read program in January and asked a question about the billing of some of those book purchases.

Noon to 1pm: Worked on my statistics for the end of the year (100 more people came to programs this year over last year – attendance increased from around 395 for the year to 498! YEAH!); emailed my YALSA mentor (Hi Valerie!) about a Google hangout date; read a YALSA blog post about measuring program success and was encouraged by the opinion that it’s not always about the numbers; applied to an organizational giver for World Book Night which means givers can sign up to pick up their books at our library; emailed my library director about it – we are SUPER pumped about WBN; investigated the YALSA YA Lit Symposium in Austin next fall and looked into scholarship/funding opportunities. (I really want to go! Anyone to gift me $1000?)

1-2pm: Fixed a Firefox tab/browsing history issue for the head of Tech Services*; created a flyer for our March author program by Leslea Newman (March 13th at 7pm! You should come!); looked up how many summer reading incentive things I bought last year so I could get comparable numbers for this year and picked the prizes that my Teen Advisory Group liked the most when I asked them to help me choose.

2:30-3:45ish: Did a bit of research on Belle Epoque since I may get to interview the author, a Morris award (best debut YA author award from the ALA) finalist; emailed a few contacts at the schools with the Leslea Newman flyer; went upstairs to gather up my books for the “starred recommendation” board for the windowsills of my teen area; taped the stars onto the books and wrote the reasons why I thought the books were “stars” – basically just the books I really like and want lots of teens to read!

4pm-6pm: Worked at the Main Desk checking in and out books, answering the phone, putting items on hold, filling in statistics for previous programs, helped patrons find books, etc. It’s hard to write what you do at the circulation desk. It’s busy!

6pm: Home time! I listened to A Feast for Crows on my drive. I’m really ready for Dance with Dragons – I need less of the Ironborn in my life.

That’s it! A day in the life of a young adult librarian!

*You know how in Firefox when you open a new tab it shows your most used site and perhaps you don’t want that floating around? There’s a couple of ways to fix that 1. Click the little Punnett square-esque button in the upper right hand corner or 2. follow the instructions from this picture:

I just ignored those warnings….

Always remember to clear your browsing history and cookies, too.

**Looking up librarian memes for this post was a hoot. This was a good one, though circ staff does a lot of finding as well:

I like the following one, too, though sometimes I’ll admit your questions are strange. For example, when you call in to ask if the library is open and I respond that it is and you ask me if I’m sure? Yup, those are the times I’d really rather you not ask me.

Like this:

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Published by lcarslibrarian

I probably can't really be an LCARS librarian since I'm stuck in the pre-warp drive for humans early part of the 21st century. Bummer. But if I could be an LCARS librarian I would. Or I would work in Stellar Cartography. Or is there a library on Battlestar Galactica? For now, I'll just stick to reading books, writing, and earth-bound YA librarianship.
I hope to use this blog as a way to write book reviews for myself and others, and to write about librarianship.
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7 thoughts on “A day in the life”

Ask Your Library Director to send you to the YA Lit thing in Texas next fall…if you tell her about it in plenty of time she just might be able to budget for you to go…Just helpful advice from an anonymous friend…

Picked up feast of crows in the library… and then put it back yesterday – but I hope to read it soon! I really want to finish reading Telegraph Avenue and Brothers Karamazov and have both going simultaneously right now – such a jumble of lots of reading to suit my crazy end-of-semester mood.